A Jester’s Fortune l-8

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Found some rather good bargains at Corsica, too," Fillebrowne told him more coolly, his plumby "Ox" or Etonian sounding sneer-lofty, from clenched jaws. "Quite a trade in secondhand, at San Fiorenzo or over at Leghorn. I'm certain you've seen some of them, sir. Even fetched them off from Toulon yourself, sir? After Admiral Hood's evacuation? Some rather rare, precious and darling pieces 'mongst the first wave of йmigrйs? Quite delightful finds, they were."

  Lewrie felt the fist in his lap, out of sight, tighten suddenly, and his ears went red with anger.

  Who on Corsica had turned into the biggest broker of furniture, statuary, art, dresses and jewelry, who might Fillebrowne have dealt with, but Phoebe Aretino? Where else'd a body go to hunt up bargains?

  By God, did he… did she…? During? 'Course not, she wasn't that huge a whore, ever! After, sure. After she caught me at Leghorn, and came back to San Fiorenzo. For spite. And you'd throw that in my face, you smirkin' shit? That you've bedded my ex-mistress? In that house I rented for her? On that duke s bed I paid for?

  Much as he'd like to smash the man's face in, he took a sip of coffee to temporise. Win a mistress, lose a mistress, he thought; and then she's somebody else's, 'cause she's not the sort to go without a man. Needs a man in her life, that's her way. He warned himself not to be jealous over her. But he couldn't help it. Knowing there'd be others after him, intellectually, was one thing; but to have it all but said to his face by the fellow who'd done it, to gloat and to row him beyond all temperance, well, that was quite another story!

  "Ahem," Lewrie said as calmly as he could. "Thankee for a fine sec-, ond breakfast, Commander Fillebrowne. But I fear I must be returning aboard Jester. Should that land breeze come, I'd regret any delay in using it, or keeping Captain Charlton waiting too long."

  "Of course, I quite understand, sir," Fillebrowne replied, as they both rose, "one captain to another, hmm? A moment, and I'll get my coat and hat to see you off, properly."

  All but simperin' at me, Alan fumed silently; smug hound! " Venice, I'm told, isn't noted for its cuisine, surprisingly," Fillebrowne prated on as they left the great-cabins, to the thuds of musket butts and the scurry to reassemble the side-party on the gangway, "but do we get our run ashore, I'd be honoured to sport you and your first officer a shore-supper, with me and mine. Become more familiar with each other and our ways, should our two vessels come to be paired?

  Bags of shallow water in the Adriatic, where our two frigates could not dare, hmm?"

  "An excellent suggestion, Commander Fillebrowne," Alan agreed unwillingly, forced to be pleasant in public.

  Quite the practice I'm gettin', he thought sourly, that recent breakfast turning to ashes in his innards; lies to Charlton over his bloody whist, and now to this!

  "It will be a red-letter day for Mister Stroud, d'ye see, sir." Fillebrowne chuckled. "After all, he has so few chances to meet men such as yourself. Such a famous officer. The 'Ram-Cat,' hey, sir?"

  Damn yer blood, you… Lewrie thought.

  "I must own to being a bit in awe of you, myself, sir," Commander Fillebrowne told him further, seemingly all earnest. Betrayed, though, by the tiniest hint of drollity at the corners of his eyes; all but taunting. The sort of insubordinate air that could get a common seaman triced up and lashed!

  "Now you do me too much honour," Lewrie replied, doffing his hat to the salutes, the long, warbling calls of bosun's pipes, with his teeth on edge in a humourless smile. "Sir," he spat in warning. "Too, too much, indeed," he drawled, his eyes gone from merry blue to Arctic grey, as cold and menacing as a drawn sword blade.

  Fillebrowne doffed his own hat, caught that subtle sea-change as he lifted his head from a departing nod and paused for a second, as if suddenly wary that he'd bitten off a tad more than he could chew. He scrubbed that smirk from his face and turned sombre.

  Eat a hatful of shit and die, ya bastard! Alan devoutly wished as he scampered down the boarding-battens to his cutter.

  "Shove off, Andrews," he hissed.

  "Aye, sah," his Cox'n replied crisply, knowing the signs of a man contemplating mayhem. This was quite unlike the usual easygoing way of his captain. He smelled trouble in the offing.

  May take more time to make up my mind 'bout Charlton, Lewrie fretted stonily, till we've served together a watch or two. But you, me lad, I can read you like a book already. That's the last time you ever dare sneer at me, no matter how clever an' subtle you think yerself! What was it Choundas threatened at Balabac? "I'll rip off your head an' shit in yer skull"? Cross me, Commander Fillebrowne. Cross me, I dare you!

  "Smahtly!" Andrews bawled at his oarsmen. "Put ya backs inta it!"

  Lewrie looked up at him, met his eyes. Andrews cocked his head and raised a questioning brow, and Lewrie rolled his eyes in a silent reply, made a sour grimace as he pursed his lips as if he wished to spit something over the side.

  "Winds comin, sah," Andrews offered hopefully. " 'Bout tahm." "A-bloody-men, Andrews," Lewrie grunted. "A-bloody-men!"

  Book II

  Inde omnem innumeri reges per litoris oram,

  hospltii quis nulla fides; sed limite recto

  puppis et aequali transcurrat carbasus aura.

  Then along all the line of coast come kings

  innumerable, whose welcome none may trust;

  but let thy canvas speed past with

  straight course and level breeze.

  Argonautica, Book IV, 613-615

  Gaius Valerius Flaccus

  CHAPTER 1

  Two days of sailing South, past the Egadi Islands and Cape Boeo, west of Sicily, into the Straits of Sicily. Then another day beating East-Sou'east, South-about Malta, on the open sea. Then a fourth day, butting against an Easterly Levanter, heading Nor'east for the Ionian Sea. The squadron barely logged 150 sea-miles a day, in fretful winds that never quite seemed to make up their minds as to which point of the compass they cared to blow from one hour to the next. A slow passage, certainly-but a sure one, at least.

  There'd been very little merchant traffick to be seen, beyond a few anonymous slivers of t'gallants on the hazy horizon every now and then, for most vessels preferred to stand closer inshore, north of Malta, or in the dubious safety of Neapolitan waters. As far as they could from the hostile Barbary Coasts to the far south, naturally, if they were legitimate. Some flotillas and fleets of scruffy fishermen had made their appearances when they were within sight of Sicilian or Maltese shores. But for them the sea seemed swept clean of the bigger game they were sent to seek.

  The pair of frigates, Lionheart and Pylades, sailed in-company, a short column in line-ahead, about two miles apart. Jester and Myrmidon Charlton had flung out far ahead, another twelve miles or more; Myrmidon to the landward side, and Jester up to windward, to the Sou'east. Still within good signalling distance, however.

  Four days, and a bit, at sea.

  And, like the winds, Lewrie was still fretful. Going over his encounter with Fillebrowne, cringing with embarrassment or surging hot with a sullen rage, betimes, as a man will when reliving the chagrin of a hasty retort or stinging comment twenty years in the past. Or like running his tongue over an aching tooth. They both could still evoke the same quick hurt.

  "And… time!" Mr. Buchanon rasped as the half hour and the hour glasses were turned, and the very last of the eight bells marking the end of the Forenoon, and the beginning of the Day Watch, chimed at the forrud belfry. The Sailing Master, Mr. Wheelock the Masters Mate, a pair of midshipmen, and Lieutenant Knolles all lowered their sextants to make their observations on slates or scrap paper. This was the daily ritual of the Noon Sights, when by chronometer, sextant and the height of the noon sun Jester reckoned her midday position to determine where she was and how far she'd run since the*past noon reckoning. Noon Sights was also the dividing line, that last chime of the ship's bell 'twixt the previous day and the beginning of a new one, no matter what a calendar, or a landsman's arising, said ashore.

  "Thirty-eight degrees… twenty minute
s north latitude, I make it, sir?" Midshipman Spendlove opined hesitantly.

  " 'Tis or 'tisn't, sir," Buchanon grumbled. "Own up tit or hold yer peace."

  "Thirty-eight degrees, twenty minutes North, sir," Spendlove declared more firmly, though Lewrie noted that he held one hand behind his back with a pair of fingers crossed.

  "Thirty-eight degrees, uhm… nine minutes North, I make it," Knolles puzzled, holding his scrap of paper at arms length, as if he had misread it. He gave his sextant an experimentary shake, a tilt to either side, to chase the gremlins from it.

  "Ten minutes, sir," Wheelock commented.

  "Closer t'ten minute," Buchanon sighed. "Mister Hyde?"

  "Oh, thirty-eight, ten, Mister Buchanon, sir," Hyde chirped in quick agreement.

  "Toadyin' wretch," Buchanon groaned. "But, aye… ten's more like it. Now, longitude, sirs…"

  "Eighteen degrees, ten minutes East," Lewrie snapped. "Which places us about a day's run South of the Straits of Otranto. Or one hundred twenty miles Sou'west of Corfu, the nearest Venetian-owned island. Do you concur, Mister Buchanon?"

  "A moment, sir… a moment." Buchanon grinned, bending over the binnacle cabinet and the jury-rigged chart table. "Aye, sir. Or there'bouts. Slates, gentlemen. Let me see yer… conjurin' tricks," he said to the midshipmen. "You, specially, Mister Hyde."

  Lewrie stowed his sextant in its velvet-lined teakwood case, careful with the latch. He gathered up his own cased chronometer as the others completed their reckonings, after a long glance to see if his was running even close to the Sailing Master's, the First Lieutenant's or the larger master, which was Admiralty-issue.

  "Done, sir," Buchanon said at last, handing him the reckoning, scribbled on a slip of margin-paper scissored off a completed sheet of foolscap. "Thirty-eight, ten North; eighteen, eleven East." The Sailing Master whispered the last, with an apologetic shrug.

  Lewrie shrugged, too, thankful that Buchanon covered his error. It wasn't a great one, that. But he'd been too distracted to reckon properly, had gotten sloppy with his sums. And was still too fretful to keep his guesstimate to himself.

  "Sights completed, sir," Lieutenant Knolles reported officially.

  "Very well, Mister Knolles. Dismiss the starboard watch, and set the larboard. Then pipe the hands to dinner."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  "I'll go below, sir," Lewrie told him, heading for the after companionway ladder by the taffrails. Andrews was there to take the sextant case, while Lewrie carried the chronometer box, handling them both as if they were eggshell-delicate, and not quite trusting to the brass carrying-handles.

  He wrote in his personal log, noting the weather, the sea state, their position at Noon; that decks had been swept, washed and stoned in the pre-dawn, that the hands had exercised at gun-drill for an hour and a half in the Forenoon, followed by Secure, an inspection, then an hour of small-arms and cutlass drill before Clear-Decks-And-Up-Spirits. Two men on bread-and-water, no rum or tobacco, for malingering; two down ill and one ruptured, trussed and on light duties after trying to shift a wine keg for the Master-At-Arms, by himself.

  Damn fool! he thought.

  He threw down his pen and leaned back in his chair, restless and irritable as Jester bowled along, thrashing into the winds, and taking a quarter-sea on her starboard bows, which made her thrum and creak.

  Did I read more into what Fillebrowne said than what was there? he asked himself for the hundredth time. He can't be that large a fool, to think he'd serve me sauce with impunity, can he? I have to work with him, dammit. Surely he knows better. He has to work with me! Does he think Captain Charlton will protect him? Greedy pig or no, he's competent. Runs a taut, trig ship. Patronage only goes so far; it can't make a complete fool of a commander, or a captain. Damme, his First Officer, Stroud, was so protective of him. Those Marines of his thought it was funny, but they seemed worried about him, too. Only been in charge of Myrmidon a dog-watch and has that sort of loyalty already, so…

  'Less he's too idle, let's 'em get away with murder, that's why they cosset him. A stern captain'd ruin their lives! No…

  "A sip o' somethin', sir?" Aspinall intruded on his thoughts from the doorway of his pantry across from the dining-coach.

  "What?" Lewrie snapped irritably.

  "Afore yer dinner, sir." Aspinall cringed. "Would ya wish a glass o' somethin' wet, 'fore yer dinner, sir?"

  "Uhm, no." Lewrie sighed, sure that spirits-before the sun was well below the main-course yardarm-and his foul mood, would be a bad combination. "Don't think so, Aspinall. But thankee." Alan softened.

  "Aye, sir," Aspinall replied, ducking back into his pantry.

  Toulon padded to the desk after a good yawn and stretch, and a thorough tongue-wash on his favourite sofa cushion, to starboard. A prefacing Grr-murr! of effort to announce his arrival, and he was up on the desktop, to sniff at the quill pen and bat at it hopefully. Lewrie smiled for the first time that morning and teased him with it, holding it over his head. Toulon half reared on his hind legs to bat at it, turned excited pirouettes as Lewrie circled the quill, slashing with both paws at his "birdie."

  "Deck, there!" came a faint, thin cry from high aloft. "Deck, there! Sign'l fum Myrmidon!"

  Toulon caught his "birdie," crumpling the spine of the quill in his paws, and bore it to his mouth as Lewrie cocked his head to hear.

  "Two…'strange… sail!" The lookout slowly read off the distant bunting. And Lewrie was out of his chair, shrugging into his coat and hat, halfway to the after ladder to the quarterdeck, before the man finished shrilling "… up… t'windward!" Toulon remained on the top of the desk, flopping onto his side to gnaw and claw his prey with his back feet, oblivious.

  "Masthead!" Knolles was bellowing aloft through a brass deck-officer's trumpet. "Anything in sight?"

  "Nossir!" the lookout bawled back, after a long moment to scan the weather horizon with his hands shading his eyes like a dray-horse's blinders. "Nothin' in sight!"

  "Up to windward of Myrmidon," Lewrie grunted, joining Knolles by the wheel drum. "Due East, or up to her Nor'east, perhaps?"

  "Aye, sir, I should think so." Knolles grinned, removing his cocked hat to run his fingers through his blond hair; a sign of joy or agitation, Lewrie had learned by then.

  "Mister Spendlove?" Lewrie called over his shoulder. "Aye, sir?"

  "Bend on 'Acknowledge' to Myrmidon, then repeat the hoist for Lionheart, astern," Lewrie instructed. "Aye aye, sir." "Mister Spendlove?" "Aye, sir?" The lad checked in mid-turn.

  "Make sure you preface the hoist to the squadron commander with 'From Myrmidon,' so he doesn't think the two strange sail lie windward in sight oius, sir."

  "Aye aye, sir!" Spendlove heartily agreed. It wouldn't be the first time that signals had been misread or missent between ships since he'd come aboard Jester.

  "Two ships or more, sir!" Knolles enthused, almost clapping his hands together as he swung his arms at the prospect of action or easy prize-money. "Fine weather for a pair of ships to come running off-wind through the Straits of Otranto. French, perhaps, sir?"

  "For Taranto or Calabria, if they're inshore of Myrmidon; for Malta, too, perhaps," Lewrie speculated. "Neapolitans, Maltese or God knows what, so far. Come on, Fillebrowne. Tell us a bit more!"

  "Lionheart acknowledges our hoist, sir," Spendlove told him a moment later. "Nothing more, sir."

  "Mister Knolles, I'd admire you eased us a point free." Alan frowned, fighting the urge to chew on a thumbnail. "That will let us sidle more northerly, towards Myrmidon. Within sight of whoever or whatever these strange sail are."

  "Aye, sir. Quartermaster, ease your helm a'weather, a point free, no more," Knolles told the helmsman. He opened his mouth to call down to Bosun Cony in the waist, to alert the watch for a sail trim, but thought better of it, for the moment.

  "Aye aye, sir!" Mr. Spenser parroted. "Helm a'weather, one point. Her head's now Nor'east by North, half East!"

  "Deck, there!" the mainmast lookout shril
led. "Sign'l fum! Myrmidon! Three strange sail, t'th' East'rd!"

  "Repeat again, Mister Spendlove." Lewrie fretted, pacing the deck plankings, head down and scuffing his shoes on the pounded oakum between the joins. "Aloft, there! Where, away… Lionheart?" "Lar'b'd quarter, sir! Crackin' on royals!"

  "Sail ho!" the foremast lookout added. "Three sail, d'ye hear, there! One point off t'larboard bows!"

  The day wasn't too hazy, Lewrie noted, laying hands on the top of the windward bulwark and gazing down at the creaming quarter-wave of Jesters wake; a lookout can see twelve, thirteen miles. Wind's just strong enough to tempt a body sailin' large, or broad-reachin', to hoist t'gallants, at the very least. Maybe royals, too. Put 'em hull-down… maybe another six miles off, he calculated deliberately. Seven miles, should we be seein' royals only? Twenty miles, say, up to windward of us and Myrmidon?

  "Three strange sail, d'ye hear, there!" the foremast lookout added. "Turnin'l Hard'nin' up t'weather! T'gallants an' tops'ls!"

  Lewrie smiled to himself, leaning back, gripping the cap-rail, and peering up to the Nor'east, where he imagined Myrmidon might be, though he couldn't see her from the deck. Three sail, who had just espied a strange ship-Myrmidon, thrashing full-and-by to windward, almost dead on their bows-and swinging further out to sea, turning more Sutherly, to give her a wide berth. Or to avoid being spotted? That didn't sound much like innocent merchantmen out on their "lawful occasions." There wasn't any fighting in the Ionian Sea, not yet. Why would three ships be sailing together, unless for mutual aid and defence? And bearing up to the wind, to slip round the seaward flank of a single strange sail?

  "Mister Knolles?" Lewrie called, turning to face his second-in-command.

  "Aye, sir."

  "Pipe 'All Hands,' sir. 'Stations for Stays,' "Lewrie ordered. "Do they try to reach south on us, we might be able to cut them off. Put the ship about, on the larboard tack."